~The Roots of the Middle East~

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Tuesday, June 2, 2009

User-submitted story by James Sorrell

"An army of sheep led by a lion

will defeat an army of lions led by a sheep!"

~Old Arabian Proverb~~

*

This whole mess goes back to a conflict between half-brothers: the sons of Abraham, Ishmael father of the Arabs & Isaac.

Had Abraham and his wife regarded God's promise that a male heir would be born to them, Abraham would not have allowed his wife to hook him up with her maid Hagar {Sarah had no faith in God}, producing the beginnings of conflict after Ishmael's birth, when Isaac was born according to "the promise" & Ishmael/Hagar were dis-inherited forever.

(Abraham tragically listened to the voice of his faithless wife, and not the voice of God.....later he did.)

"The promise" of Palestine being the Jew's land forever. {Genesis chs. 16 & 21; actually, the Jews are the "Palestinians"}

After Rome scattered the Jews in AD 70 to other lands [God allowed it for Israel's refusing the Messiah], the vacuum was filled by the surrounding Arabs.

For nearly 2,000 years the Jews slowly filtered back until the USA helped them become a nation again in 1947-48.

When the warring parties realize that they should stop fighting their dead ancestor's wars of hate [~~you are still half-brothers, an event that time can't change~~] and have a peaceful life of their own, there can be a real truce in that troubled land.

All surface efforts, whether national, international, cultural, ethnic, social, religious, tribal or military will fail until the root of the FAMILY crisis is solved with a FAMILY solution!

As any good gardener will tell you, the decaying & infected ground will not be healed until the roots are healthy again.

A former prime minister of Israel, Golda Meir, said that "As long as the Arabs hate the Jews more than they love their own children, there will never be peace in the Middle East."

Many nations (ever read history?) have made peace by marrying off a couple (boy & girl) that often were the favorites of their respective peoples. According to their own traditions, all hostilities were put on hold until after the "honeymoon"....in this case, if the "honeymoon" was prolonged, the peace might take hold.

There are still many "matchmakers" in both cultures that could pool their efforts to pull off a successful union.....a couple that is widely respected & loved. Love just might save the day, and the couple might even already know each other; but as in Shakespeare, have not gone public yet !